Snapshots
by BuryTheHatchet
Summary: Tony's thoughts and emotions as agent afloat. Funny-ish. (Original strikethroughs added via underlining.)


**Playing around with Tony's thoughts whilst he was stuck as Agent Afloat between seasons 5/6. Just having a little fun with his emotions, I do not know how well it turned out.**

 **Some of the letter that he writes to Ziva should have had strikethroughs, but Fanfiction being fanfiction, it did not work like that. To rectify that, I have underlined all of the words that did have strikethroughs.**

Snapshots

He stuck the drawing pins through the corners of the last photograph and grinned. If she saw McGee had not destroyed them she would go berserk, it would be worse if she ever found out that he had printed them off and pinned them up. But she wouldn't find out, would she? Because they hadn't spoken in over three months. She was back in Mossad and he was stuck on another damn boat. It was all Vance's fault. It was Vance who had sent Ziva back. It was Vance who had ordered him here. But it was only himself he had to blame. It was he who had screwed up in LA. He had told Ziva not to worry about Jenny. He should have listened to her instincts, listened to her when she said something was wrong. Not just blown her off as being paranoid. She wasn't. Something had been wrong and they had lost the director for his mistake. Yes, Jenny had put him through a lot, what with the 'la Grenouille' case and Jeanne, but she had also become a friend as well as a colleague. After all, it was her who he had gone to for advise. And he had let her die. He looked back at the photos of Ziva from that fatal fieldtrip and chuckled to himself slightly. For some reason they were the only photos he had of any of the team away from crime scenes. Really, he hadn't spent much time with any of the team away from work accept maybe the late nights with Ziva, but did that really count? No, he decided, paperwork did not count. There was that time when McGee's psyco fan had tried to kill Abby that he had tried to cheer him up, but that wasn't really the sort of time you take photos.

"Girlfriend you left back home?"

"Hm?" The voice pulled him away from his thoughts. He looked at the commander and then back at the photos. "No, just a friend." He shook his head.

"Looks like a little more than a friend. Nice…bikini."

"She's just a friend. We were working a protection detail in LA." He looked down. "We had the afternoon off."

"She's real pretty." He grinned. "You sure you never…"

"Positive. I think I'd remember something like that." He laughed. "They're all I have to remember my old team by." He shrugged.

"Not a bad way to remember them…" The commander had his head tilted and was looking at the photos from another angle.

"Can I help you with something, Commander?"

"No, just wanted to ensure you were getting settled in here." He shrugged, standing up straight when Tony moved in between him and the photos on the wall.

"Well, thank you, Commander." He nodded and yawned.

"I'll let you get back to unpacking."

"Thank you." Tony nodded and looked towards his pack, sighing at the small back of clothing. First things first, a postcard to Abby. He couldn't face the trauma of missing writing one; Abby would kill him – or worse. He took out one of the pictured cards from the stack of twenty that he had purchased at the last port and sat at his very small desk. He never really knew what to write to Abby. After the first three, he had run out of things to talk about each week: there's not much that happens worth retelling on an aircraft carrier.

 ** _Abs!_**

 ** _How is my dear little lab-rat?_**

 ** _(You know I use the term in the most endearing manner)_**

 ** _Are you missing me yet?_**

 ** _What am I saying, of course you are! I'm missing you too!_**

 ** _How is the McGoo doing without me? Does the boss-man have some sort of tension building in his hands from where he hasn't been hitting us all? How's the toothpick fairing in the big old director's chair? How're Ducky and the Autopsy Gremlin?_**

 ** _Have you heard from Ziva?_**

 ** _I miss you all, Abs._**

 ** _Say hello to everyone from me._**

 ** _Love, your favouritest ever NCIS agent._**

He added a smiley face and sighed at how depressing the whole state of affairs was. His gaze fell on a pad of paper with several lines crossed out. Why couldn't he do it, just write her a letter? Because it was Ziva and he didn't know what to say. Stupid, he knew. They could talk and laugh when they were together, but everything he wrote to her sounded ridiculous. He picked up a pen and started again.

 _Ziva, how are you?_

No. He couldn't just start with that.

 _My dearest Ziva_

What was he, her great aunt? Her true love torn away from her by war?

 _Dear Ziva_

Too dull.

 _Ziva. Long time no see, huh?_

Stupid. Plain stupid.

 _Ziva,_

 _How is my beautiful crazy Israeli ninja doing? It's been a while, huh? I just wanted to check you were alright, you know, since we didn't exactly part in the best of circumstances. Abby misses you, you know? She wishes you'd call. So do I. _

_How is Israel? Mossad keeping you busy or are you bored out of your mind and missing investigating American navy officers steeling cars and selling drugs? I guess you can't say, or you'd have to kill me. Probably a better outcome than me being stuck on this ship for any longer._

 _So how are you really?_

 _I should have listened to you in LA. You were right and I was wrong. Sorry. I should have listened. If I had listened maybe Jenny would be alive now and we wouldn't be half way across the world from one another the rest of the team. _

_I miss you_

 _We all miss you, Ziva._

 _Love, Tony._

He reread what he had written and scrunched the paper into a ball, tossing it into the wastebasket on the other side of the room. An alarm beeped and he looked to the clock he had set. He had spent three hours writing those measly few words that would never be read. Three hours wasted time. _If Gibbs were here he'd smack you round the head right now for wasting so much time and not even sending the letter_ he thought, punching the wall as he stood up and slamming the door as he left.

 **For my reference: 11th NCIS fic.**


End file.
